


Give Me Your Heart

by fineinthemorning



Series: It Would Be a Tragedy [5]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Manga Spoilers, POV First Person, POV Third Person, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 04:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7299787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineinthemorning/pseuds/fineinthemorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They fail to understand one another right up until the very end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter will be in first person POV and the second chapter will be in third person POV from Arima's perspective.

“Have you no intention of killing me, either, then?”

Your tone is as collected as it has always been. We could be discussing a case or reviewing a file- not debating the end of your life. You sound too prepared, and I’m suddenly worried. I’m worried for two reasons with the first one far outweighing my understanding of the second.

The first: You’re important to me. By extension, your life is important to me. The end of your life would mean something missing in mine, and that may be selfish, but it’s all I can see right now- an empty space where the living once were. I don’t want you to exist in my life as a memory as so many others do; I want you to exist beside me now and long into the future.

The second: You cannot see your own importance. It’s funny in a way, because I had lost sight of my own until quite recently and partly, thanks to you, remembered it. Three hours ago, I was ready to die. But, even having an understanding of that in application to myself, I cannot begin to understand how you may have lost direction and reached a similar conclusion.

Kill you? _Kill you?_

I couldn’t possibly. Though you’ve hurt me so much, you’ve in-turn done so much for me as well. Kill you? I could never kill you. I don’t understand you completely, and all I have to go by are your actions, but- that’s _enough_.

It’s enough to understand that, like me, you couldn’t possibly be happy with this, because it means hurting the people you care about and you do- _you do care_.

“I do not.”

“Defeat, huh?” You lean your head back to look at something I can’t see.

“Eighteen years. Eighteen years have I been an investigator. And yet, this is the first time I am faced with an opponent against whom I have no course of action.” I watch you, my full attention on _only_ you. You’re still staring upward into a place I cannot reach. Do you see the past there? The past that you’re only now sharing with me?

You look down to me. Our eyes meet. I search yours for words you’re not saying and emotions you refuse to convey, but I can’t see anything, and my fear only grows.

I won’t. You can’t.

“I will ask you one more time. Do you really have no intention of finishing me off?”

I’m not wrong.

“My decision will not change.” How could I willingly deprive myself of you? And so many others, too?

I don’t understand.

“I understand.”

Before I can confirm if you really and truly do, you commit the unspeakable.

“Arima-san, no!” I catch you as you fall backward and immediately cradle your head gently as the blood pours forth unceasingly.

You’re not a god.

You’re very human.

You’re so human that in three to seven minutes, you will die.

I never understood you completely, but that didn’t mean- that _doesn’t_ mean I can’t care about you. _That doesn’t mean I can’t love you._

“You can’t die yet!” I scream selfishly in your face and your eyes look at me as if they’re seeing me for the first time.

Encouraged by them, I begin to list reasons why. I have to prove to you that what you’re doing is wrong. “You never returned the book I leant you. You  owe me a game of CCG shiritori. Arima-san, it’s almost Christmas.” I speak to you as if you can still take it back. You can just turn back time and make a different decision. “You have to come over and have dinner- I already got you a gift- you can’t-”

I realize the water on your face are my own tears. I failed again. I’m helpless again. I beg you to just take it back, “Please, _please don’t die._ ” This is not over yet. Fight me again if that is what you want. Meaningless? I take it back. Even if we have to keep fighting until the end of time, it would be better- better than _this_. I choke back a sob and somehow whisper to you, “ _I wanted to know you better._ ”

Your eyes are slowly speaking to me.They’re just as lost as I feel.

“You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a father- _please-_ ” I made it about me, but I selfishly want you to stay. Stay and be the father I never had. Stay and be the family I wished for. Stay because I need you. I need you. I need you. I need you.

“ _Please. Please!_ ”

There is too much blood bubbling still from your neck and down your chest, drenching my hands and knees and I try once more to understand.

You lost the battle, so you deserved to die? Why? I know you’re more than the CCG’s reaper, but do you? Do you understand your value beyond the battlefield? I have to make you understand.

“Don’t you get it?! There’s more to you than _this! You’re more to me than this!_ And others, too-” I just don’t have time. I need more time.

There are tears that sneak out the corners of your eyes, and I’m sure I’ve gotten through to you, so now, all you have to do is take it back. “Arima-san, please-” Take it back. You’re worth so much more than this. Take it back. Take it back. Take it back. Stop bleeding. Stop-stop dying. Please-

You smile. It’s gentle, a smile I’ve seen before but somehow more beautiful this time, more genuine, more you. No, I’m seeing you smile for the first time.

_Why are you so happy to greet death?_

“ _. . . Thank you, Haise._ ”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very repetitive. Sorry, the themes are a bit obvious here.

“Have you no intention of killing me, either, then?”

Arima realized then that he had never been in this situation before. In all his years, he had not been met with this quandary. But, he expected its possibility. Standing before him was Kaneki Ken, the half-ghoul who damaged his quinque. Standing before him was Sasaki Haise, the defected investigator who had completely disarmed him and who could not be killed.

It was the one person in his life that introduced him to a world full of firsts.

The first life he saved.

The first person who viewed him as family.

The first person who treated him unbiasedly- like he was human.

The first person who tried to understand him.

The first person who could defeat him- finally.

Finally? In the lives of investigators, this moment too often comes quickly, but as he watched so many fall before him, he wondered if reprieve would ever come for him. Surely it would this time. Surely this time would be the last time.

The last time he had to kill.

The last time time he’d carry the weight of family.

The last time he would have to be treated as a god- like he was inhuman.

The last time he was left alone and misunderstood.

The last time he would win- finally.

_Finally._

“I do not,” came the other’s reply.

_What?_

Fighting was what Arima knew; it was what he understood. And fighting was meant to be done to the death. If someone was refusing to kill him, what did that mean? If the one person who could succeed in taking his life did not do so, did that mean he was condemned to go on?

As what?

For what reason?

“Defeat, huh?” Arima  looked to the sky he could not see. In it, he saw the past. He had been taught, molded, shaped, and trained for only one fate. If he failed in that, what use did he have?

Arima had not been given eyes with which to see; he could not understand the expressions that played across the faces of others..

Arima had not been instructed on how to internalize the words of others; he had no ears with which to listen.

Arima had not been trained to speak with his mouth; he could not speak for himself.

Arima had not been educated on the scents that inspired life; he had no nose to recognize them.

Arima had not learned to touch, to caress, to hold life; he had no hands to feel anything aside from the firm grip of his weapon.

How long had it been since he was human? He could not remember what it was like. Both humans and ghouls were foreign to him. They possessed what he did not, and no matter how close he came when acting like them, when being with them, when speaking to them and calling them his; he still understood nothing of what their worlds were like.

“Eighteen years. Eighteen years have I been an investigator. And yet, this is the first time I am faced with an opponent against whom I have no course of action.” He could not be allowed into that world. Always separated from it; he had no place except for on the battlefield- the great divide between the two ever warring worlds made of creatures that saw and touched and spoke and felt and understood.

If he no longer could live here in this limbo, and he had no place with either, where did he have left to go?

Arima watched the man in front of him- the one who had given him first of so many things. The one who also existed between two worlds had achieved something he never had; he’d found a heart with which to love. How could Arima do the same when he could not understand even one side, let alone two? He had not been equipped for such things. He had not been made to achieve what Haise had. “I will ask you one more time. Do you really have no intention of finishing me off?”

Firm in his sentence, he spoke in a voice unyielding to Arima’s silent doubt, “My decision will not change.”

Arima did not belong.

Haise would not end his inbetween existence, so, he understood it was up to himself.  

He did not belong.

“I understand.”

He had no further purpose; he had no way in which to live as the humans or ghouls did.

Arima Kishou committed to his final action with one swift cut of a broken blade.

“Arima-san, no!” Arima, immediately, could smell blood; his blood smelled the same as theirs.

He marveled at the pain. Was dying truly the most painful experience? It would seem so.

“You can’t die yet!” Arima’s eyes widened. Was he seeing with both eyes for the first time now? Haise felt devastated; that was his emotion in his expression. His face was saying that watching Arima die was ruining him. Arima stared back in wonder. The other one who stood between both worlds had grown to rely on him so heavily? No, he had grown to need him?

“You never returned the book I leant you. You  owe me a game of CCG shiritori. Arima-san, it’s almost Christmas. You have to come over and have dinner- I already got you a gift- you can’t-” Arima felt saltwater on his face. It was hot. They were tears. Haise was alive and would remain so. He would live on without the weight of having killed his-

_You are like a father to me._

Humans and ghouls alike cried at the loss of a loved one. Arima felt his eyes water and tears began to fall from his eyes as well. He would lose someone forever- the person who had given him so many firsts.

“Please, please don’t die.” Arima knows that he will. “ _I wanted to know you better._ ” Arima doesn’t understand what there is to know, but he listens to them as they spill from Haise’s mouth. The words he says carry the weight of others.

_I want more time with you._

_I don't know you, but I wish I did._

_You are important to me, so it is important for me to understand you._

Arima couldn’t be sure, but when he heard Haise sob, he felt certain that those words could be heard within them as well.

“You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a father- _please-_ ”

Arima realized then that it was better.

He was grateful to have been accepted by Haise as human, but life was much easier lived without being one or the other.

“ _Please. Please!_ ”

Because, while he still didn’t understand Haise completely, he understood that his action has caused him great pain. He understood that the emotion he was feeling was _pain_ now- something more crippling than the red pouring forth from his neck now- and he wanted it to _stop_.

“Don’t you get it?! There’s more to you than _this! You’re more to me than this!_ And others, too-”

He didn’t understand much of what was being said any longer.

He remembered that he doesn’t belong.

“ _Arima-san, please-_ ”

Arima had always lived in between worlds- trapped in the comfort of being neither human or ghoul.

But the man who brought so many firsts in his life, brought him a final one- the realization that there was only one world in which he belonged- the one he created through the relationships he forged with the people he-

Arima spoke the only clear thought in his mind, and he was sure that they were his words, untethered from the ties that bound him, and that made all the difference, “ _. . . Thank you, Haise._ ”

 

_It’s too late now, but to be shown that I have worth beyond what I was created for- you are the first._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I apologize for being all over the place.

**Author's Note:**

> Questions or comments much appreciated.  
> *Dialogue Text before "unspeakable" is taken directly from manga.


End file.
